My Pet Goldfish
by newxyorkxloser
Summary: I'm think I'm falling in love. I'm falling in love with a seventeen year old mental patient. I'm twenty one. I'm in college. I have a job. I have school. I have.. Why is this wrong? What's wrong? What's ever wrong with love? SpencerxAshley AU
1. Chapter 1

So, I started writing this a few weeks ago and then forgot about it. Dx And then I found it again and I guess I'll post it. I've got 8 chapters done already, so updates should be pretty regular.

I've never written a SON story before, so I hope it's okay and you like it and everything. :)

--

"Hey, new girl, what's your name?" I'm asking, glancing up from the clipboard I've got resting on my leg. God, I didn't even notice when she sat down, but now there she is, sitting on the lone plastic, elementary school style chair next to the cheap plastic table that's supposed to be for coloring on, but I haven't met a sixteen year old bulimic or cutter or druggie who likes coloring yet.

She's got her arm stretched out on the table and she's leaning back and she's looking around the room at everybody else and I can't help but wonder if she's scared at all or if she's been to places like this dozens of times.

"Ashley," She says, cocking her head at me. Huh. She actually looks like an Ashley, too. Shocker. I stare at her and try to hold her gaze and I'm trying to see if there's _something_ in that pretty little face of hers that shows she's just a little bit scared, because everybody's scared when they come here, but I don't see anything.

And then she bites her lip and looks at the tv at the end of the room.

Poor girl.

I let my eyes trail down her almost frail looking arm, which looks so incredibly out of place on a girl as strong as she's trying to act. There's all these little red scabs and circular scabs. Track marks? She looks 14. I guess that's what you get when you work in L.A.. 14 year old heroine addicts.

Unless she's a methhead, but they don't usually start shooting until they've been snorting and smoking for at least a little while, and she isn't thin enough. She isn't wasted away. I dunno. Besides, nobody on the unit's on meth. They have a whole other section for that.

I look back at her face and I'm still trying to figure out what I can just by looking at her, because that's just the nurse in me and I'm trying to be helpful, and then I see her lip tremble again and all that just flies out the window.

"Don't be scared, okay? Nobody's gonna hurt you or anything here," This is why I'm a nurse and not a therapist. I really don't know how to make people feel better, and anybody who knows me well enough knows that it's a big deal for me to try. I was always kind of shy when I was a kid, and even as I got older, I was never really that out there and my people skills aren't really the best.

How the hell did I end up being a nurse in a mental hospital?

"I'm not," She says, but the dull, forced tone she says it in says everything else, even though her face is still the same.

Maybe she's a dealer.

I catch her gaze again and I look at her for another moment and she looks back, and then she's staring at the ground and then I shrug and look back down at my clipboard. Point sheets. What fun. I tried. It's not my job to make her feel better, that's for the therapists. I just make sure they don't have sex with each other in the living room and I keep track of their point sheets.

"Ashley, can you come with me, please?"Ick. Claudia. Puke. She's another one of the nurses and half the time it's like she just loves watching these kids staying locked up in this shitty hallway of a rehab and it's like she likes watching them suffer and waste away here because she's always knocking points off their point sheets for breaking stupid little rules that nobody follows and she goes through their rooms when they're eating in the dining room.

I really shouldn't care so much because it's not like I'm a resident here, and she's my colleague and everything but honestly, what the hell.

This Ashley girl turns away from the tv and over at Claudia, and by the look on her face, she's already thinking the same thing as me. Smart girl.

Well, not really. I take that back. She can't be all that smart if she's landed herself in a place like that with people like all the other ones who walk these hallways and sit and waste away and take their medications and go to groups and sleep and eat.

Jeez. I hate this place so much but I work here.

Actually, that explains itself pretty well.

"Sure," She says, and she's falling back into that monotone again. No, monotone isn't the right word. I don't know, but it's something. It's like she's lost herself and she's just going through the motions but her face is always the same. She pulls herself up and she pushes her bangs out of her eyes and it's then that I notice the scars and the bruises lacing up the inside of her arm.

I don't even know why I'm doing this. I'm overanalyzing some high school kid in the mental ward the same way I overanalyze girlfriends and friends and whoever I'm interested in and everybody else I care about.

And I think that these kids have issues.

"Spencer, would you come here? I need somebody else in the room while I do the physical examination," God, her voice drives me insane.

I'm really not one of those people you see bitching and whining about all the tiny little things people around them do or anything, and I'm not even really one to hate people or anything, but I just absolutely can't stand people like Claudia. She isn't all that bad at all to the nurses or the doctors or the parents, but she's horrible to these kids.

"Coming," I say to the floor, dropping my clipboard in the nurse's station and then following Ashley into the "examination room" which is really just a tiny little room with a bed and a first aid kit.

When I walk in, Ashley's already sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning back with the same posture she had out in the living room. Laid back. She's trying to act like she doesn't care and this is every single day for her and even her face goes along with it, but she does all these tiny little things and she blinks too much and it's so obvious she doesn't do this all the time and she's terrified.

"Alright kiddo, take your shirt off,"

I feel like such a freak, but I'm not gonna lie, the whole girls in their bras and underwear as part of admissions thing is a pretty nice perk.

And that sounds so absolutely disgusting and I feel like the scum of the universe for even letting that cross my mind.

"Excuse me?" She's glaring at me and she's got her jaw clenched, but she gives herself away again. It's her eyes this time. It's her eyes and just the tiniest little shift in her posture--she pulls back into herself and she moves her arm from behind her to across her stomach. You'd never know it if you just glanced at her or heard the venom in her voice, but this scares the shit out of her.

"It's this physical exam thing we have to do for everybody who comes in here,"

She's still glaring at me, and I can see her hand shake. Sexual abuse too? God. Poor girl. I'm sorry.

"You guys already weighed me and shit," She mumbles, staring at the ground now. She hates this. She's losing her composure.

"You're not allowed to curse," Claudia practically hisses, looking up from her papers for the first time since I've been in here, just to glare at her and practically stab Ashley with her eyes.

She doesn't say anything.

"We're just supposed to check for scars and everything.. it sucks, I know, but it's procedure." I'm saying, trying to catch her eye and reason with her and get her to just go with this, and make her realize that I really do feel bad and if I had a choice, I wouldn't but I have to because it's my job, after all.

I care too much about what she thinks of me. That's really kinda sorta not good.

Whatever. At least I'm not Claudia. We're two opposite extremes and I, personally, think my end is better for our line of work. AKA working with messed up, insecure kids.

It's weird because my whole trying to tell her with my eyes that I have to do this and I know it sucks and blah blah blah thing actually worked, and she stares at the ground as she pulls her sweatshirt, then her tshirt over her head and lays them down beside her.

"Can you--" I start, motioning away from the bed, and before I'm even done, she's on her feet and she's still got her eyes on the ground.

Claudia looks up and down her body and then reaches forward and tries to grab her arm and turn her around so we can look at her back, and she jumps back like she's been burned or something. What the hell. I'm glaring at her, and then looking back at Ashley and marking all the bruises and half healed scabs and the years old scars on my chart.

Those're cigarette burns. Christ.

--

"So, you want the grand tour?" I'm asking, looking up at her from my forms and paperwork and she's just sitting there, staring at the wall and twirling a piece of hair around her finger. She's always doing that--not the whole hair thing, but she always looks away from everybody in the room with her. Shit. I need to stop. I mean, I guess it's not that bad because I'm a nurse and I'm supposed to be picking these things up and I'm supposed to be trying to figure out what's wrong with her and I'm supposed to be helping her get better, but it still feels like I'm doing something so, so wrong and that means that I probably am, because I'm not noticing these things because it's my job to.

Fuck. I overanalyze everybody around me and I think too much into everything I do. I'm going to drive myself absolutely insane.

At least I'll already be in the mental ward already when that happens.

"Sure?" She cocks her head at me as though she's asking, "What the fuck could be grand about a shithole like this?" I guess she's still too pissed off about the whole being here thing to have a sense of humor. Not that I can really blame her or anything.

I'm pulling open the door and she's walking out, back into the hallway and I'm following her and then closing the door behind me.

"Living room," I point at the tv and the 6 most uncomfortable chairs in California. "Dining room," I point down to the opposite end of the hallway, to the only open door. "Girl's bathroom," I'm pointing down the intersecting hallway, and then I'm walking down it, assuming she'll follow.

"Courtyard door's that way, but it smells like shit, so you're really not gonna get too much fresh air while you're here," I'm telling her honestly, and then I'm turning and walking into a now empty room on my right. "And here's your room. Oh, and see that red line on the carpet outside the door?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't cross that. We've got this whole 'patients aren't allowed in each other's rooms' thing. You get your level dropped back to two if anybody catches you. And by anybody, I mostly mean Claudia." She smiles a bit. Hah. I guess she feels the same way about that evil short little.. creature as I do. See? I'm not crazy. She practically radiates evil and may as well have a neon sign over her head that says "Bitch" in bright red letters.

She's sitting on her bed and I can tell by the look on her face that she hates it already.

"Wait'll you have to sleep on it," I'm saying as hop onto her table, and then swing my legs around under it once I've pulled myself up and I'm pretty confident I won't crush it.

"Okay, I know you're probably sick to death of me by now, but I've gotta ask you a few questions.. then I'll be out of your hair. Promise."

She smiles again. A woman of few words. Sexy.

Oh, for god's sake Spencer, she's in high school.

"So.. Ashley Davies. You're 17?" She nods. "Drink?" Nod. "Smoke?" Nod. "Drugs?" Nod.

I'm opening my mouth to ask, but she's already telling me. "Pot. Cocaine." She must see me eyeing her arms, because she adds, "I tried heroine a few times.." She's quiet for a moment, and I look at her and she really is pretty for somebody so messed up. She doesn't look like it. "I've taken Xanax and Ritalin and stuff a few times.."

"Have you had sex before?" Nod. "Men or women?" She looks up at me, and then eyes the clipboard and then my face.

Yeah, I'm curious, but it's on the paper. Honest.

"Both,"

"Do you cut yourself?"

"When I was a kid," She says, and I look up from my paper again. That's new. You don't usually hear about teenagers, especially drugs addicts, who'll tell you that they used to cut themselves like, 6 or 7 years ago but they don't anymore.

"So why do you think you're here?"

"Fucking cops.." She laughs a bit and then lays back on her bed and stares at the ceiling.

She really is quite beautiful, to be honest.

And I know I really shouldn't, because it's like, she's my patient and whatever, but really, whatever. It's not like I'm going after her or anything and she's only 4 years younger than me.

I think I should just stop thinking. Right now. I'm digging myself into a deeper and deeper pit in my own mind and I can't even to describe how disgusted I'm making myself with myself.

I'm crazy. I'm so, so crazy. No wonder I work here.

Stop thinking Spencer. Please. Stop. Right now.

I smile just the tiniest bit at her, and she smiles, and then I'm looking back down at my paper.

"Actually, that's it," But I'm still curious. I wanna know more about miss cute mysterious bisexual 17 year old druggie girl. "So, you need anything else or anything?"

She shakes her head, and then I'm standing and I'm pulling her door open and walking out.

"Oh, and you're not allowed to have your door closed,"

She gives me this, "What the fucking fuck?" look, and I shrug.

"I know, it's messed up,"

And then, the next thing I know, I'm back in the living room watching Spongebob with 3 teenagers who're talking about the drugs they've tried and the threesomes they've had.

Somehow, I got dragged into this one.

"So, Miss--" One of the guys, the one with a huge afro, is saying.

"Spencer,"

"Right, Spencer. You're cute. You can probably get all the guys you want. How many guys have you done it with at once?" He's grinning, and the other guys are laughing and slapping him on the back. Christ. It's like a prison or something. Uhm, hello, there's other girls here you know.

I make a face at him and ignore him and stare at the tv. Spongebob. Goody. I love Spongebob. Love. Love love lovelovelovelove.

"Unless, what, you go for the girls?"

Teenage guys are disgusting.

"You get with lots of hot college girls? How old are you anyway, like 18?"

"You do know I can get you put on status if you keep going, right?" I'm saying simply, leafing through papers until I can find his point sheet. Ricky. He's been level 4 for a week. Some of them get really, really crazy about their level and they flip a shit if they get their level dropped or anything, as though they can't get it brought back up in a couple of hours. And, really, the only perk of staying a level 4 for so long is that you get to answer the payphones.

Oh boy. What fun.

I guess he cares, anyway, because he shuts up immediately.

Jeez. This is what I get for working in this place. I'm fluent in mental hospital language. Levels determine how much freedom they get, but we're one of the less liberal hospitals, and the only difference between the levels here is that you get to stay up half an hour later and you get to go to the cafeteria so you get a selection of shitty hospital food instead of not having a choice. Level 1 means you're on status and you have to always have a nurse watching you. Level 4 is highest.

I can't wait to get a new job. I feel so crazy sometimes when I'm here. A lot of the time, actually.

--

Secret. I got the idea for this when I was puking from stomach flu. The original idea was a bulimic girl instead of a druggie, but I couldn't see Ashley as bulimic.


	2. Chapter 2

God. I hate the universe right now. Words can't even begin to describe how much I want everybody and everything to go and drop dead. Right now. Right. The fuck. NOW.

So I just worked until like, midnight, and I didn't get home until one and I get to wake up at six and be back at work by seven. Work this work that work work work fucking work I want to fucking die I'm too tired to even bother with grammar too bad deal with it this fucking sucks I need coffee lots of coffee right now.

Coffee is man's greatest invention. Ever. In the history of the universe. Ever. The end. No questions asked. Coffee and cigarettes are all I need in life, up until I get lung cancer and I'm laying dying in bed, then I'll probably need a cigar. And a gun.

I'm a really pleasant person, I know.

Shut up. I'm not usually this bad. I just hate mornings and I hate where I am right now and I hate hate hate how I'm living and where I'm living and how it's like I work my fucking ass off at this stupid job and I'm not getting myself anywhere and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon and I don't know anybody and I'm single and I'm practically broke. Fuck. I tend to think in run-on sentences when I'm tired and pissed and trying to drive to work and drink my coffee and chain smoke at the same time but some stupid fuck keeps swerving in front of me and you know what, fuck you buddy, you're not the only one on the road. And yeah, I know I'd have more money if I'd just quit smoking, but I'd lose my mind if I quit smoking, so too fucking bad.

Besides, I've cut back.

Sort of.

I'm down to a pack a day.

Shut up. It's an improvement. I'm working on it, okay?

FUCK I wish I was sleeping. I should be sleeping. I have absolutely no idea why I'm not. It's summer. I'm a college kid. I should be sleeping. I'm not sleeping. I'm not at home. I'm in a shitty apartment and it's hot and I'm working in a mental hospital with a bunch of teenagers who like to try to interview me about my sexual orientation.

What is it with people and their fixation on my sexual orientation? What is it with the expression sexual orientation? Like what the hell. Where did that come from. It makes sense, but I don't care. It bothers me. It always makes me think of oral sex. What is it with me and my fixation on my sexual orientation?

I'm gay. Big deal. Whopty fucking doo. Good for me. Good for everybody who knows it. Good for anybody who cares.

Yeah. It's kind of a new thing. It shows. And by new, I mean I came out 3 or 4 years ago, but it's being gay, for chrissake. It's a big deal. It's still new. I'm still not used to it and it still bothers me when people call lesbians lesbos. I'm crazy, I know, but whatever. I kind of went through hell. Like a lot. I went through fucking hell to be somebody that a pretty good part of society hates me for and nobody seems to understand that I didn't chose to be this way and if I could just be straight, I probably would, because it'd just be so, so much easier.

But then again, I don't know. No, I wouldn't. I don't think I can ever with a guy. Ever. I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to think about getting married to some guy and going off and having kids and yayy straight sex every night. No. I sound like a total jackass, but I love women. Love. Women. I don't want to be with a guy. I don't want to not be with a woman.

I don't know how to explain it. It's not a choice, and yeah, fine, I'm hated for it, but I'm glad I'm 's not right. I don't know how to put it into words.

Oh, jesus christ. I hate bad drivers. That's another thing I hate about this job--getting there. I'm gonna get myself killed just getting to work. I can't deal with this. I'm barely awake. I'm not awake. My eyes hurt and I must look like I got punched in the eye, even though I'm wearing makeup, and I feel like a shitty piece of shit. Fucking. Shit.

I curse a lot when I'm pissed. Go figure. Pissed and tired and oh my god, no, do not tell me that was my last cigarette.

Yeah. That was my last cigarette.

Please let me die.

OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT ASSHOLE FUCKING THINKING I'M RIGHT NEXT TO HIM GOD IF YOU'RE REAL AND YOU DON'T HATE ME FOR BEING A FAG I DON'T REALLY WANT TO DIE PLEASE LET ME STAY ALIVE FOR NOW. PLEASE.

Oh. Hey. I'm not dead.

No accident yet. Okay. Life is good. I'm not dead and I have coffee and I'm almost at work and there's a cute halfie seventeen year old at work and--

What the fucking fuck. It's like I have a crush on her or something. Wow. I just said crush. I haven't called liking somebody a crush since about the fifth grade. I just said crush. Wow self. Nice job. No wonder people think I'm a freshman in high school sometimes. A lot of the time, actually.

At least I'll be able to laugh at them when I'm 45 and I look 30 and they're all sagging and wrinkly. If I haven't gotten lung cancer and blown my brains out by then, anyway.

I really want some potato chips. Oh my god. Chips. Right now. Need chips.

Fuck. I'm addicted to everything.

Mmmmm. Addiction.

--

"Spencer?" She's looking up at me and she has the cutest little puppy dog eyes.

Her being Ashley. And yeah, fine, I did just say that she has the cutest little puppy dog eyes. Hey, I'm not gonna lie. She does the whole "I'm so cute look at me" thing pretty well and she.

Shut up. I would've lost interest right now if it wasn't for the whole bi thing.

I'm completely ignoring the fact that the girls could've just been drunken hookups or something.

Whatever. Too bad. She's cute. That's it.

"What?" I'm glancing up from my clipboard and my pile of point sheets. What else do I ever do around here?

"My pancakes are cold," She's telling me, twisting her scrambled eggs (at least, I _think_ that's what they're supposed to be) around her plastic fork and poking her pancake hopelessly.

"Be happy you get pancakes for breakfast," I'm telling her, shaking my half empty cup of coffee around. "This is my breakfast."

"Be happy you get coffee," She says back, chugging her little plastic cup of overly sugarified (is that a word?) apple juice and then she puts it back down and stares at me like I'm supposed to feel bad for her. Which I do. Sort of. I think.

I can't live without coffee.

I feel bad for her.

"You smoke, right?"

She nods. I'm watching her drum her fingers on the table and she's chewing her lip and her eyes are darting around the room.

Christ. I can't imagine life without coffee and cigarettes at the same time.

"Here," I'm pouring what's left of my "breakfast" into her empty plastic cup and smiling at her just the tiniest bit. I can't help it. She knows my stupid addictions. I wince at her agony.

"Can I have a cigarette too?"

"No."

God, I love this girl. She's like me minus everything.

That made no sense. I mean she's the girl I wished I was when I was in high school, except the part where I was always trying to be the good kid and the bad girl at the same time because I was scared of getting in trouble. Or something.

It seemed important at the time.

She gives me the look, and then pushes herself back in her chair and balances it on two legs and sips my coffee.

I feel like a good person. It feels good. Go figure.

--

I've only known that I'm gay for four and half years. I mean, I should've known for much much longer. I've had crushes on girls since I was in kindergarten, but I never really called them crushes. I'd tell myself that I just thought whoever she was was really pretty or that she was nice and I wanted to be her friend.

Friend. Right.

Well whatever. I figured it out eventually. That's all that matters. I was actually stoned at a party and this girl that everybody knew was gay or bi or whatever she was started flirting with me. I think. Or something. But I kissed her, she kissed back and we ended up.. yeah. So at first I thought like, "Oh my god, this bitch took advantage of me oh my god," and I was freaking out and everything. Then the next day I was making out with my boyfriend and I decided I wasn't going to tell him what happened because it didn't matter because I was stoned.

Yeah. Didn't matter. Right. I saw my boyfriend and I tried to kiss him and I gagged and I thought I was going to puke. It was awful. I told him I had a hangover.

Then I dumped him.

He outed me, for the most part. He didn't even know, he just heard about the party and started telling people I dumped him for her. Which wasn't necessarily true, we just started making out in bathrooms every now and then. I didn't dump him for her. I dumped him because he was disgusting.

I don't know. It sucked. The whole thing just sucked.

Then my brother found out. My good old homophobic brother. He's a total sweetheart. Sweet enough to out me to my mom.

Good old mom. I was almost eighteen when she found out. She just sort of.. kicked me out. Told me I disgusted her. Told me she never wanted to see me again. Told me I was dead to her.

It sucked.

The only good thing was that I already got accepted to college. I had my own money for college. So I bought a plane ticket and flew out to Los Angeles and now here I am, 21 and I'm working and going to school and I'm okay.

I'm as okay as I can be, considering, at least. And hey, that has to count for something, doesn't it?

I'm okay. It counts for something.

But yeah, that's why I'm working at this god awful job and I'm spending more than half my summer in here. Half, being that I'm spending the other half sleeping and bathing.

I feel like such a sob story. I actually spent a little while in a hospital like this one. Nothing long term or anything, just a couple of months because I was cutting myself when I was nineteen. No big deal. And I'm not like a cutter or anything. I stopped doing it. It's not like I'd done it for years and years up until then. I just.. I don't know. I was sad. I was stressed. It made me feel better, at least for a little while. It stopped me from blowing up at everybody around me. Apparently it's bad for you though. Shocker.

I still have contact with my other brother, Clay. Which is good. He's the only family I have left, really. I don't really think my dad hates me either, but it's not like I can call home. Not with my mom there. She's probably changed the number by now anyway.

Wow. I really need to stop. I'm acting like my life is horrible. It isn't. It really, really isn't. There was just that one little blip. Everything else was fine.


	3. Chapter 3

I haven't been home in almost eighteen hours. I got the night shift last night after I worked all day on four hours of sleep and now I'm working another day and I still haven't gone home. I got to leave for fifteen minutes to go and get some coffee. I got five cups and an energy drink, which I'm sure must be bad for me, but I honestly don't care at this point. It hurts to exist. My eyelids feel like bricks over my eyes and it's agony to look at anything or move or breathe or just be alive.

I must smell awful. Like coffee and old cigarettes. Oh. That's the other thing about my caffeine overdose run that can't possibly be healthy: The fact that I chain smoked an entire pack of Marlboro 100's. I mean, give me some credit here, I hadn't had a smoke since yesterday. Or something. I don't even know when but it was way, way too long ago. And a pack is probably less than I would've smoked if I hadn't been working, which is good. Right? I'm cutting down. It's good for my health. It's good for my wallet. And if it's good for my health it's like good for my wallet times a billion on crack.

That's Spencer-speak for good.

Mmmm. Coffee.

I love iced coffee. I drink it all year round. Which isn't really that weird in California, I suppose. But I drank it all year round when I lived in Ohio, too. I drank it in the dead of winter while I was in Chicago and while I was in New York and when I was in Vancouver. Granted, I was in Vancouver in July, but still. I was in New York in February. I walked out of the hotel I was staying in in the middle of a blizzard and bought a cup of iced coffee at a Dean & Deluca near Rockafeller center and I drank it as I walked back to my hotel.

I'm really, really messed up. I know. Please don't remind me.

I just like my coffee cold, okay? It makes my tongue feel all weird and numb and hairy if I drink hot coffee. Or any hot drink, actually.

When I was a little kid, I'd go to this coffee shop in my town with my mom in the middle of winter, and every now and then she'd talk me into ordering a cup of hot chocolate. I'd always make her buy me a cup of milk as well, because otherwise I'd get thirsty while I was drinking my hot chocolate.

Weird. I know. It made sense at the time.

I wonder how my mom and dad are. I wonder how Ohio is.

I really should stop thinking. I'm going to make myself miserable.

This is what I do. I just don't think about the past and I don't think about what could have been and I don't think about home or my family or anything that's happened, really, before or after the whole gay thing because I know I'll just make myself sad over something I can't change. It's not worth it. It's just not. Just keep moving forward. It's all you can do in live, really. Crying over getting kicked out for being a fag won't change it. It won't make it better. It'll just drive me crazy.

So I'm supposed to be running a group at nine. Which is in like, three minutes. Why they have me doing a group, I have no idea. I'm just supposed to be a nurse. But hey, I'm the gay nurse who used to be a cutter and has all these weird fun mental disorders and takes an assortment of happy pills every morning and night, so maybe it's because they think I can relate to these kids or something.

Well they're right. It's still weird though. I don't want to relate to a bunch of thirteen-to-seventeen year olds. That's just.. no. Well, no, that came out wrong. It's just. I don't know. I want to relate to other twenty-somethings. I don't want to sit with a room of eighth graders and freshmen and tell them my life story and try to tell them that everything is going to be okay if they just try or whatever, because it isn't. And I know that, if it was me, anyway listening to somebody talk about how they used to be miserable and just like them, and now they're working in a mental hospital, I probably would've been even more depressed.

Yeah. I just don't like the whole therapist thing. I don't do therapy. I don't do making people feel better. I think we've been over this. That's why I'm not a therapist. I shouldn't be running a group. I'm terrible with people. I make people feel even worse than they already do, and considering my line of work, that's saying something.

Whatever. It's just a stupid group. I never had a group that made a difference to me. It's not a big deal. So what if I screw up? I'm the lesbian college girl nurse, it's not like they're going to make fun of me for that long. And, for god's sake, they're high school kids in a mental hospital, why should I care what they think of me?

It's nine.

I really don't want to do this.

Too bad.

I'm sighing and running my fingers through my hair and I'm pulling myself up from my wonderfully comfortable plastic chair (puke) and I'm dragging myself and my stupid clipboard and my stupid pen and my stupid energy drink over to the group room.

Somebody please shoot me. Please.

I don't really mean that. Getting shot would probably hurt.

Christ. I'm such a pussy. And, what the hell. Wow self. I was about to say "Somebody please shoot me," again. I think I have like memory loss or something. I'm really not that bright. At all. Except I actually am. Supposedly. That's what my grades would tell you, anyway. But what do grades mean, really?

I'm crazy. I should just stop. Right now.

I'm sitting in another plastic chair, this time in the group room and it's the only room besides a couple of the bedrooms that actually has light and you can see outside from. It's nice. I need some sunlight. I'm starting to feel like a zombie. Oh wait. Vampire. I meant to say vampire.

Girls like vampires.

There's a couple of kids walking in and sitting down around me. There's a table in front of us and we're sitting around it and there's nothing on it except my can of Monster and my clipboard and mine this and mine that.

I feel bad now.

Ashley's sitting next to me. I barely even noticed her walking in the door, but now here she is. Sitting next to me.

She smells like apples.

God, she's gorgeous.

Okay. Spencer. Stop. You're really creepy. It doesn't matter that you'll never ever ever _ever_ act on what you just thought, it's still creepy as hell.

See? Thinking never helps anything. It makes everything so much more complicated and it drives you insane and it makes you start talking to yourself in your head in the third person. When you start talking and/or thinking in third person, you know something is very, very wrong.

"So, I guess this is everybody?" I'm asking nervously. I have no idea what to do. There's only four of us, and this feels. I don't know. I'm going to screw up or something and they're all going to notice and they're going to laugh or they're going to take advantage of how fucking insecure I am. Or I'm going to say something wrong and they're going to take it to heart and I'm going to fuck up.

What the hell. They're kids. I shouldn't care. They're kids and it's a group.

They all shrug and grunt at me. I guess so.

"Uhm. Okay. I've kind of never really done this before," I'm admitting, laughing a bit. One of the girls sitting three chairs away on my right smiles a bit. Ashley twirls her hair around her finger and leans back in her chair, balancing it on two legs like she did the other day at breakfast. "Well.. I dunno. Hi. I'm Spencer,"

"Joe," The guy sitting farthest away from me says. He's got long blonde hair and bangs that're long enough that they're covering his eyes. He's got stitches in his left wrist.

"Katie," The girl I don't know says. The one who smiled. She's got jet black hair and a lip ring.

"Ashley," She's staring at the ceiling, and she's still got her hair around her fingers and she still smells like apples.

"So.. How old are you guys, anyway?" Ashley looks at me and I look back. She smiles, and I smile back. It's weird. It's like we already know each other, just because I was the one who did her interview and everything. Well, I mean, I guess we do. In a weird way. I'm trying to tell her that it's for the other two. It's like we're two friends and we're stuck in a room with a couple of people we don't know and we're trying to make them feel welcome or something.

Except it's a group. In a mental hospital. And I'm a nurse. And she's a patient. And. And I'm driving myself crazy. It's a group and she's a patient and she's cute but I'm definitely not and she definitely isn't thinking anything that I'm thinking and I'm so, so creepy.

They go around again. Joe's sixteen. Katie's fourteen. I already know Ashley's seventeen.

I look down at my clipboard and wonder again what I'm supposed to do. I glance at their names.

They all have bipolar. So do I.

What the hell. I thought this was supposed to be confidential or something. Whatever.

"Okay, I honestly really have no idea what I'm supposed to do. And I'm a nurse, and this isn't really even my job. At all. So.. do you guys wanna do art therapy? Or just chill out or something?"

There's no way I'm going to run an actual group with a bunch of kids who're screwed up the same way that I am. Just no.

"I just had an art therapy group yesterday," Joe's whining, picking absently at a zit on his chin. Ew. Shut up kid. I would've killed to have art therapy two days in a row when I was in the hospital.

"Okay. I guess. I dunno. Let's just talk then. About.. I dunno. Life. Anything," I'm saying, leaning back in my chair the same way Ashley is without even realizing.

Hey. I'm barely done being a teenager myself. I'm not going to act like a boring blah blah blah stiff old creature all the time. Preferably, none of the time.

I'm really professional, I know. Hold the applause.

"How can you stand working in a place like this?" Katie's asking, looking up at me. She's picking at her fingers and she's got chipped bright orange nail polish at the ends of her nails. Either she doesn't even bother repainting them or she's been in here for a few weeks.

For a second, I sit here and I don't say a thing, and she's probably wondering if I'm going to answer or I'm going to do that obnoxious thing where I just pretend that she never said anything.

"I have no idea," I reply honestly.

"Then why do you do it?"

"I need the money,"

Okay. So now apparently this is "interview Spencer" time instead. Joy to the world. Happy happy joy joy happy happy joy joy.

Fuck me with a stick.

"So what'd you guys do to end up here, anyway?" Joe asks, still picking at the zit on his chin. I need to remember to never ever do that again if _that's_ what it looks like. Honestly. Ick.

"Some chick found me smoking a joint in the school bathroom," Katie says eagerly. What the hell. I kind of want to laugh. She's like two. Well, no not really. I did plenty worse when I was fourteen. But still. She's trying to fit in or something. Which is kinda funny. In school and anywhere in normal society, really, you try to act as normal as possible and fit in and just hope nobody looks twice. In here, you have to be totally fucked up or else you don't have anything to talk about with anybody.

The other two make sympathetic noises. Oh boy. How exciting.

"I'm.. well. Yeah," Joe mumbles, indicating the stitches on his wrist. Well he's a bit more normal. He's not flaunting it or anything. I kind of feel bad for him now.

"What about you new girl?" Katie asks, looking over at Ashley.

"She's not really that new anymore, she's been here for three days," Joe tells her, pulling the hood on his sweatshirt over his head.

"Exactly. She's new. I've been here for a month and a half on Tuesday," Katie says.

"I.. uhm. Just stuff, I guess. I dunno. Everything," Ashley mumbles nervously. She isn't leaning back in her chair anymore--she's up against the table and she's leaning on her arms, chewing her finger. Yeah, her actual finger, not her fingernail or anything.

If it wasn't for the fact that she's a kid and I'm a nurse at the hospital she's in and everything, I'd hug her. I feel so bad.

--

I'm working the night shift. Again. I'm glad I didn't have too much of a social life to begin with, because if I did, it would've died by now. I went home for the afternoon after the "group" I ran, and I took a shower and chain smoked and drank a ton of coffee and loved every second of it, and then I had to go right back. Well, not really right back. I slept. I masturbated. I watched some tv.

_Then_ I had to go back.

I'm going to go absolutely fucking crazy (as opposed to partially crazy like I am now.)

On the bright side, my paycheck is probably starting to look pretty nice.

Right?

It's two in the morning and I'm sitting sprawled across two plastic chairs in the living room, some lesbian novel held inches above my face. Getting paid to read about lesbians having sex isn't really that bad, now that I think about it.

"Spencer?"

Her voice startles me. Startles me to the point that I jump and drop my book on my face. My 400 page, hardcover book. Jesus christ, it's two in the morning. What the hell is she doing out of bed?

"Sorry.." I can hear her mumbling.

"It's fine," I say, pulling my book off my face. "You need a sleeping pill or something Ashley?" I hate how this place's answer to everything under the sun is medication. If the kids can't sleep after half an hour of laying in bed they can ask for pills and we give them to them. Medication this, medication that. Of course, this is coming from a girl who's on meds for god knows how many disorders, but still.

She doesn't say anything, so I turn and look at her and realize that she's shaking her head.

"What's wrong then?"

"I just need somebody to talk to," I hear her voice crack and shake just the tiniest little bit. My eyes travel down to her hands and they're shaking and I know exactly how she feels.

I'm not a therapist. But I know what she's going through. And I'm a human being. What human being can say no to somebody who needs them?

"C'mere," I'm saying, tapping the chair next to the one I'm resting my feet on.

She sits down, and then she looks unsure of herself and stares at the ground and starts tugging at the sleeves on her sweatshirt.

"Hey, don't worry. It's not like this is rounds or anything. I'm not gonna say you need to stay longer if you're not okay or tell anybody if you don't want me to.. This isn't my job or anything, alright? I'm just a person and you're just a person. Say whatever," I say quickly. And it's true. I'm not obligated to tell anybody anything she says to me.

"I fucking hate it here," She says simply, pulling her knees up to her chest. My image of that strong girl I saw when she first came here is completely gone. She isn't strong. She's some poor teenage girl who's absolutely miserable and falling apart and I know because that used to be me. She's me when I was seventeen years old.

She sits. She waits. I wait. There's a clock in the nurse's station and I can hear it ticking.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Watch us waste away.

"I know that I'm not okay. Anybody who looks at me can see that, but what the hell is locking me up going to do to help me?"

"Honestly, I don't know. Nothing. Nobody's going to help you unless you let them," I sound like a therapist. I hate therapists. I hate the shit they try to feed you. I feel so bad for the people swallow it.

She looks at me and then laughs.

"You people don't want to help me. You want to make me miserable,"

It feels like that. It really, really does.

"So that's what they told me at the last hospital. They told me they wanted to help me and I should feel safe and all this bullshit and then this fucking.." She trails off and she's got this look on her face like she didn't mean to say that. Like she's said too much and now she's scared of me and I know something I'm not supposed to know.

"Really. I'm not a therapist. This isn't my job. I won't say anything,"

"He fucking raped me," She says simply.

I want to ask who. But I don't. I don't really think that that's the kind of thing that you ask somebody.

"And they've got me on all these medications and shit, right? I'm a fucking druggie and they put me in a place to make me better and they give me drugs? And I mean, I guess I want to get better. Yeah. Yeah, I wanna get better, y'know? But how the fuck am I supposed to? I've been trying for fucking years. Why the hell would this be any different? You say you want to help me but you don't care about me. None of you people give a fucking shit about me or how I feel, you just put me in this fucking room and wake me up in the morning and feed me shitty food and.."

She stops talking, and she just sits there and bites her lip and she isn't shaking anymore. She's just pulling her knees closer to her chest and she's got her arms wrapped around her legs and her hair's in her face.

She pulls herself up and she's standing, looking unsure of herself for a moment, and then she takes a step forward and she's hugging me and I can feel her trembling again while she cries.

And then she's turning and taking a step back towards the hallway her room's in and she whispers a soft, "Thank you," as she goes.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey, you got an extra cigarette I can have?"

I glance up at her. I'm sitting on a curb outside some bar in god knows where and it's 12:30 and I actually don't have work for a change. I mumble a very smooth, "Uhm.." and then reach inside my bag. Fish around for a moment, then find my pack of cigarettes. One left.

I look up at her again. She's cute.

Lucky her.

"Yeah.. here," I say, pulling it out of my bag and handing it to her. She smiles, puts it in her mouth and flicks the lighter that I suppose she pulled out of her pocket while I was looking through my bag.

She takes a drag, and I figure she's going to walk away, so I look down the street and tap the ashes off my cigarette. She doesn't leave. She's looking down at me, and then she sits down next to me on the curb.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" Mysterious cigarette bumming girl asks. She's sitting just the tiniest bit too close to me and she knows it. If I was straight, I wouldn't think anything of it, but I'm not and she knows.

I shrug.

"I dunno. Maybe," Take another drag. Exhale. Bliss. The lights are spinning just the tiniest little bit around me and I love it. Chain smoking keeps me alive. It's almost like being high or tipsy, except it's cheaper. It takes a lot to get me drunk.

"You go to UCLA?"

I nod. Take another drag. Bliss all over again.

"Are you Tiffany's roomate?"

I nod again. Verbal communication just seems like too much effort right now. Everything just seems like too much effort right now. I'm smoking myself into a pathetic excuse of a depression and I couldn't care less.

"Spencer, right?"

I look up at her. It's nice to have somebody know my name in a place where I've fallen into a crevice of anonymity for the last few weeks. I practically stare at her, because now that I realize that she knows my roomate, I'm sure that I've seen her before. I sit and struggle to put her name to her face.

"And you're.. Madison?"

She smiles. I guess I got it right.

"That's me," She says, taking a drag from my--or her, now, cigarette. It's the first since this conversation started. I guess she doesn't smoke as much as I do. Not that I know anybody who does, really.

She's the freaking gorgeous cheerleader who always buys weed from Tiffany. I used to be a cheerleader too, before the whole gay thing. Not that I've ever really mentioned it to anybody, and it's not like anybody would really be able to tell anymore. I used to be the cheerleader type. I used to be all happy and bubbly and peppy and "Whoo, go Cobras," Not anymore. Not in a long time.

"Huh. You don't really seem like the 'roaming the streets outside a bar at one in the morning' type," I say, stabbing my cigarette out on the bottom of my shoe and then chucking it into the sewer grate nearby.

"Touche,"

"I do too,"

"Not really,"

I shrug. I guess she's been gradually shooting towards me because her thigh's touching mine now. She's wearing short shorts and a t shirt and she's practically begging to get picked up and raped or something.

She's warm.

"Aren't you cold or something?" I ask. Yeah, it's the middle of summer, but even then it gets kinda chilly at night.

"Kinda," She shrugs. She definitely is. I can see her shivering just the tiniest bit.

"Uhm.. Do you..?" I ask awkwardly, indicating my sweatshirt.

She shakes her head and takes another drag. I hate to sound.. I dunno. Crazy. Weird. Whatever. I always do anyway. But hot girls who smoke are just that much hotter. Guys.. I dunno. Not so much. I just kinda think it's sexy if it's a girl. Don't ask why, I have no idea. It's just how my strange little lesbian mind works, I guess.

"So how's your girlfriend?" She asks. Jeez. If you wanna hook up with me just say so.

Maybe I'm being crazy. Maybe she's just trying to make conversation or something. I don't know. I hate girls. They're so fucking confusing. What the hell. My brain's going to explode and I'm going to be happy about it. It'll make things easier. Life would be so much easier if we didn't have to think.

"We broke up. Like, 4 months ago," I'm saying, tapping my fingers anxiously on my thigh. I wish I had more cigarettes.

"Oh, I'm sorry," She says simply.

No you're not.

"I'm single," I add as an afterthought. As an offer. I don't know what. But it's out there.

She takes another drag. And another. And another. Her cigarette's almost completely gone now. Damn. Either I wasn't paying attention or she takes really deep drags.

"Well.. I'd better get going.. Thanks again for the smoke," Madison says, dropping the butt on the ground and stepping on it to put it out.

"Anytime," I say, watching her as she moves to stand, but she never finishes.

"Hey, Spencer?" She says, her voice soft and almost hoarse, as she looks at me, frozen halfway between sitting and standing, her face inches from mine.

"Hm?" I grunt, keeping my eyes locked with hers. What the hell. If you're going to kiss me, kiss me. Or. Whatever. Don't stand there. Your breath smells too good.

I see her face inch the tiniest bit towards mine, and then her eyes snap back to mine. Making sure it's okay or something. Whatever. I don't care. I'm tired and it almost feels like the world is shifting around me and my head's swimming. Everything's spinning and she's right there and I've got my lips on hers and she's got her hands in my hair and she's so warm and I'm so cold and she's got her arms around me and it's warm all around me.

--

Well I woke up this morning and Madison was gone. And so was the smoothie I made last night before I left. I'm sure I probably said she could help herself to whatever, but I wanted that smoothie, god damnit.

At least she left a note on the fridge. "Thanks for last night. Sorry I had to leave, work called. You make really good smoothies, xoxo Maddie" She dotted the 'i' with a heart.

Shoot me. Please, for the love of god and cigarettes and pussy, shoot me.

No. Not really. I like living. I like spending my days chain smoking and obsessing over my little kid crush on some high school girl in the mental hospital I work in.

And I like smoothies. Except now I don't have any. And I don't have any more yogurt. And it sucks. And I'm going to keep starting my sentences with "and" until I get a smoothie or a cigarette or both.

Oh praise the lord, the cigarettes have come. I'm standing in my kitchen next to the counter and I've already got a lit cigarette dangling from my mouth even though I'm really not supposed to smoke in my apartment. Oh well. The balcony is like, 3 steps away. And I'm out there now. I'm standing on my balcony and I'm smoking and I'm in my robe and my hair looks like death plopped on my head and I really couldn't care less right now. I'm resting my arms on the railing and looking down even though I live on the 5th floor and I've always been a little scared of heights.

It's kinda funny how moving to L.A. worked out for me. I'd never been out here before but I applied to UCLA and a couple of other colleges out here and what do you know, I got in. I'd never been to California in my life. And I got accepted to a couple of colleges out in New York, which I know like the back of my hand. I know the whole east coast like the back of my hand. I travelled a lot between high school and college. I did nothing but work for a few months and I lived as cheaply as possible and saved the rest of my money for school and then I spent the rest just traveling. Because, hey, I could. I dunno. I like going to new places. I lived in the same small town for my whole life and then boom, I was free.

I spent some time just going wherever. Renting cheap motel rooms and traveling up and down the east coast. I've never met anybody who knows the public transportation system better than I do. I went from Boston to Charlotte on just mass transit and ferries and cheap inter-city buses. It took hours and hours and I loved it. I dunno. I was really messed up a couple of years ago. My whole life was about my family and then all of a sudden they hated me and I was lost. I mean.. I guess, depending on who you ask, I still am lost. But I was so, so lost and alone then. My mom sent me to a mental hospital a little while after she found out that I was gay for my "anger issue". She was the one who hit me.

And then I started having panic attacks all the time. That's when I started smoking so much. It made the panic attacks go away. And I guess at the time, anything seemed better than having to suffer through hyperventilating and feeling like I was going to die five or six times a day. My mother wouldn't hear of putting me on medication for it. God knows why. It's not like she cared about me anymore. Maybe that's why. By the time I turned eighteen, I was able to get it for myself anyway. And I was addicted to smoking by then. Turns out I was bipolar too. So that was another stay at a hospital. Just to see how I would react to the medication. Then I was free and I just left. I haven't heard from my family since.

I tried calling once. They changed the number. That's that, I suppose.

Shit. Is that my phone?

That's my phone.

"Hello?"

"Spencer?" Claudia? Motherfucker. Do I ever get to stop working? Ever?

"Yeah. Hi," I'm very professional. I know.

"Can you come in?"

"Yeah.. Can I be there in like half an hour?"

She hung up. Bitch. I can't believe she's my boss.

Oh well. Last night was good, at least. I'm sighing and stabbing my cigarette out in my ashtray, then walking back inside to shower and get dressed.

Welcome to my life.

--

I'm sitting in my usual plastic chair at the end of the living room, up against the wall of the nurse's station and I'm holding the remote and lunch just ended. Lunch for the patients, cigarette break for me. It's a kind of unspoken agreement between the nurses that the nonsmokers get to watch the meals and the smokers go out for a cigarette. By the smokers, I mean me. I work in a hospital. You don't really see a lot of us hospital folk smoking. Most of them are all "rawr smoking kills" but I really couldn't give a rat's ass anymore. I guess I'm still depressed, even with all the medication I'm on. I guess people like me are just never going to be very happy.

People like me.

Five years ago, I was the happiest person I knew. I had the perfect life. I guess it just goes to show that nothing's set in stone. The pretty, popular cheerleaders with rich parents aren't supposed to turn into lesbian chain smokers and get kicked out of their houses. They're supposed to have shitty lives and work at Hooters, but that isn't supposed to happen until after college.

I dunno why I'm moping so much today. I'm just in a bad state of mind I guess. Maybe my medication isn't working like it used to. Maybe I'm just sadder. Maybe it's both.

"Hey, miss, can you change the channel?"

"It''s Spencer. What do you want me to change it to?" We're watching Spongebob Squarepants right now.

"Can you put on ESPN or something?"

"Does anybody else wanna watch ESPN?" I ask the room.

The only people in the living room are a bunch of guys and Ashley. The guys grunt. Ashley turns the page in her book and I think she looked over at me for a moment. Maybe it's my imagination.

I guess that's a yes.

I flip through the channels until I find it. Oh boy. College basketball. I never really understood the allure, but I guess the guys like it, because they're instantly glued to the tv.

I just barely hear, "And Duke takes the lead,"

My brother plays for duke. He got in on a full scholarship. He starts. He's the star point guard. Whatever the hell that means. I never really cared.

Just ignore it. It won't last that long.

"And there's Glen Carlin.."

I glance at the tv. I have to. He's my brother. He hates me now. but he's my brother.

The first time I've seen my brother in three and a half years and he's on national tv playing basketball. He's a fucking star. He's only a year older than I am and he's successful. Of course the straight siblings do great in life. Won't mom be proud?

I can feel somebody's eyes on me but I don't care whose they are. Fuck. Fuckfuck fucking fuck. I can't fucking watch this. Fuck my fucking brother. Fuck my mom. Fuck my family. Fuck everything.

Rot in fucking hell Glen.

Am I crying?

I think I'm crying.

"Hey.. can you watch them?" I'm asking Claudia, who's sitting across from me. I don't wait for an answer and I'm up and I'm walking away. I always just walk away when it gets too hard. I walked away when mom hated me and I'm walking away now. It's the only thing that's ever worked. It's the easiest thing to do.

Don't let them see you cry. That's all I can think.

I'm sitting in the dining room and there's nobody here. There's nobody around here. I'm sitting here on a plastic chair and I've got my hand on my face and I'm not making a sound because I never make any noise. Nobody ever notices me and I go through life unnoticed and that's all I'm ever going to be. Unnoticed. I had this great fucking future and I lost it and there's my brother on tv.

There's footsteps outside. I barely notice them, but I notice and that's what matters. I wipe my eyes and grab my clipboard and I pretend to be doing something deeply engaging and important, expecting Claudia or somebody.

"Are you okay?"

It's not Claudia.

Her voice startles me the same way it did the other night, and I can't help but jump.

"Yeah?"

Ashley? What the hell. Even the crazy girl doesn't think I'm okay. Fuck my life.

"Is he an ex or something?" She asks, looking at me and the chair I'm in and the way my face must be red and swollen. She looks at the chair across from me for a moment, then sits down in it.

"No?"

Fuck. She's smart. Or she's good with people. Or she's good with emotions. Or something.

"Are you okay?" She asks again, looking right at me. She doesn't show anything on her face, she just stares at me.

"Yeah?"

She smiles at me just the tiniest bit. "This isn't my job or anything. I'm just a person and you're just a person,"

I guess I actually did say something that stayed in somebody's head. Huh. Go figure.

"I'm fine. I just remembered some.. some papers I had to work on is all," I'm tripping over my words and indicating the clipboard I carry around like I'll die without it as though I'm an ape or a caveman.

She doesn't say anything for a moment, her eyes facing down, and then shrugs and walks out.

I glance down at the nametag on my chest. The nametag that has my full name.

"Okay then, Spencer Carlin,"

--

I know that they're both a bit OOC from what they act on the show. Especially Spencer. That's partly because I based both of them loosely off of myself and my personality and my life, and partly because this is a lot how I could imagine Spencer if she didn't have Ashley and if her mom had never come around after she came out. I dunno. I've always seen her as a very family orientated person, and not to say she's needy, but I can't really see her being able to keep it together if she lost her family and all her friends.


	5. Chapter 5

It's her. And it's me. And that's it. We're alone. Again. We're alone and she's sitting in her chair and she's trying not to cry but it's so obvious that she's about to.

"What happened?" I ask. Everybody else is at breakfast but she hasn't eaten since lunch yesterday. Maybe before then. I don't know. I wasn't here during lunch yesterday.

She looks up at me for a moment, her face just the tiniest bit red and there's purple bags under her swollen eyes.

"So I'm staying here for the weekend. Again." She says simply. She's been here for a week and a half now and it's Friday. Either you get discharged on Friday or you stay for the rest of the weekend, because all the therapists go home and nothing happens. No groups, no rounds, nothing. You just get to sit and wait until Monday when you might get another chance to leave if you're better. Or if you fake being better.

I give her the most sympathetic look I can muster because I can't find the words. I can never find the right words.

"This fucking sucks," She says simply, staring at the carpet.

"Hey, you know I'm supposed to take points off for cursing," I say, smiling to show I'm kidding. I won't. The only person who enforces that rule is Claudia. And Rupert, sometimes. With the kids he doesn't like. He plays favorites. We're really not supposed to, but we all do. It's not like any of us aspire to go on to be judges or anything.

She's my favorite.

She looks up at me to see if I'm kidding or not, and then she smiles back. Then we sit in silence while everybody else eats and while I should be smoking. I really want a smoke. She sits and twirls her hair around her finger and bites her lip.

I stay with her instead.

--

It's Sunday night. Well, no. Technically, it's 1 am on Monday morning, but nobody really gives a shit. I'm working the night shift again. Ashley's sitting out with me and she's drawing a picture of one of the powerpuff girls with the markers I thought that nobody would ever use, and I'm staring at the ceiling.

She walked out of her room nearly crying again. I didn't even tell her that she could talk to me. I guess she knew.

And I know at this point that this is so wrong. That she's seventeen and I'm twenty one and she's a patient and I'm a fucking nurse and it's probably at the point where I could lose my job. But I really don't care. She needs somebody and I think I'm the only person here that she has.

Maybe it's in my head. Maybe this is normal. Maybe all the night shift nurses do things like this for the kids who're just so sad here. The kids who're losing their minds here and maybe we're all supposed to bring them back to the point of breaking, and I just missed the memo or I skipped that line in the job description.

I don't know.

"Spencer?" She says softly, her voice cutting through the silence and the hum of the florescent ceiling lights.

I look over at her and give her the "yeah?" look. I'm not a very vocal person and I think she's learning that.

"That was your brother on tv the other day, wasn't it?"

I don't do anything for a moment. I just look at her for a moment, wondering how far in I'm willing to let her get. Wondering if telling her makes whatever this is cross that point where it's okay and where I'm helping her and where it really isn't okay anymore. Where it's wrong, where I can lose my job and fuck up my life. Nobody I work with even knows anything that happened. Nobody I work with knows that was my brother. Nobody in California even knows that I have a brother. Two brothers, actually. Nobody in California knows what I'm even doing in California.

I nod.

"What happened?" She asks again, like she did the other day, looking torn between whether she should try and act casual and keep coloring Buttercup's dress green, or if she should put down the marker and stop pretending and just look at me. When I don't say anything, she asks, "Does it have to do with the.. y'know. The whole gay thing?"

I guess they all really do know. Hah. Or maybe she has really good gaydar.

"Yeah," I say simply. I'm not sure if I want her to leave it at that or if I want her to ask more. Ask what happened, ask.. I don't know. Anything. Ask me who I am and who he is and about my family and what I'm doing here

"Is he homophobic or something?"

"I think my whole family is," I don't mean to sound bitter or sad or hurt, but I do. Or maybe it's just in my head. Maybe it's all just in my head.

I definitely need stronger medication. I need to remember to call my doctor later.

"How long ago did you..?" She trails off, reaching for another marker and pretending to concentrate on her drawing. She drew one of Buttercup's feet floating in midair four inches away from the body.

"When I was about your age," Ew. I sound like a grandmother or something.

"And that was.." I always forget that they just know that I'm still in school and I'm a lesbian. They don't know my life story. Nobody here knows anything about me. I don't know if that's depressing or refreshing.

"About four years ago,"

She doesn't say anything for a little while, so I look over at her.

"I'm an old lady, I know," I say, smiling.

"Nah. Even if you are, you're a pretty damn cute old lady,"

Note to self. Flirts with old ladies.

"So.. What happened? I mean, you don't have to tell me or anything.. But I mean.. If you want to," She says, awkwardly, stumbling over her words for the first time since I've known her.

"I dunno.. I came out to my best friend. Guess what? She was homophobic.. I guess all the cheerleaders are. Or something," She gives me a weird look, and I laugh a little. "Yeah, I used to be a cheerleader. Shocker, huh? Well she was dating my brother--that's Glen, and she freaked out and outed me to everybody. Including my brother who's homophobic too. Next thing I knew, my homophobic mom found out and.. Well, here I am, two thousand miles from home,"

"Where'd you used to live?" I keep forgetting that she doesn't know where I'm from. And I'm guessing she's lived here all her life, which would explain the, "Oh my god how can you even know that many homophobic people?" look.

"A tiny little nowhere town in Ohio,"

She doesn't say anything for a moment and just looks at me, and I just look back and I'm forgetting where I am and who we are and it seems like it doesn't matter. She's a high school kid in a hospital and I'm a nurse and I'm in college and I've known her for a week and a half and she knows me better than anybody on the whole west coast.

"My dad died," She offers, looking back at her paper.

"I'm sorry," I mumble. It's all I can think of. I don't do death very well.

"Nah.. I didn't really see much of him anyway," She says, looking like she's going to cry again. But then it passes and she's able to fake a smile at me.

She's looking at me and I'm looking back and she's holding my gaze and I can't bring myself to look away. She really is beautiful. I don't know. I mean, I saw it before. But it was that disconnected kind of beauty. I don't even know how to describe it. People don't seem real and they don't.. they don't really mean anything until I see everything that's wrong with them. That isn't right either. I don't even know how to describe it.

She's just beautiful.

What the hell am I going on about?

"I'm sorry about your brother.. and you family and everything," She offers.

I guess that's the end of that. It's weird. I kind of want her to ask me more. I haven't really told anybody about my family. About the hospitals or about how I ended up all the way out here or everything I did between now and then and I'm realizing how much I want somebody to know. How much I want somebody to listen and how lost I still am.

But then I stop and realize again where I am and who she is and who I am.

"My mom's kinda weird about the whole gay thing too," She says after a moment of silence.

So the girls weren't drunk hook ups.

"I thought you said.." I trail off, thinking back to the interview or whatever it was.

"Nope. Full on lesbian baby," She says, grinning.

"Did you just call me baby?" I say it like I'm her teacher or something, and she looks at me, but I'm smiling, and she just keeps on grinning.

"Yes. Yes I did. And you like it,"

Note to self. Huge flirt.

Silence again. It's just her and me and the sound of our breathing and the lights and all the sleeping people. Her gaze travels over to the clock on the wall behind the glass in the nurse's station and mine follows.

"Shit. I'm supposed to wake up at seven, aren't I?" She says, still looking at the clock.

It's two fifteen. Tick. Tick. Tick.

"I'm gonna go to bed," She tells me, pulling herself up and watching me as I stand and I realize when we're standing nose to nose just how close we were sitting and how much closer we are now that we're a foot in front of our plastic elementary school chairs. She looks at me and I look back, breathing her breath and feeling her legs and her arms and her hands brushing against mine just the tiniest bit. Just enough to make me realize how close we are. Just how little..

Her head makes the tiniest jerk towards me, and I follow without thinking and then all of a sudden our noses are touching and everything seems so much louder. The clock sounds like bombs going off and even our silence is so freaking loud.

And then I'm looking down at the ground and she's walking away, hands in her pockets as she mumbles goodnight and disappears into the darkness.

What just happened?

What didn't just happen?

What almost happened?

--

I'm sitting at home smoking. I went home after the night shift I didn't have to work the day today. I should be catching up on my sleep or something, but it's four in the afternoon and I still haven't felt tired. I've just sat up on my balcony and smoked and drank smoothies and cups of coffee. I haven't eaten, I haven't slept and I really haven't done much of anything. I've just sat here and thought about her.

It's wrong. This is so wrong. Whatever this is, it's wrong.

What the hell am I thinking?

I'm think I'm falling in love. I'm falling in love with a seventeen year old mental patient. I'm twenty one. I'm in college. I have a job. I have school. I have..

Why is this wrong?

What's wrong? What's ever wrong with love?

I'm gay. According to my whole family, me being in love with anybody is wrong. My family thinks this is wrong. Most of society thinks this is wrong. All my friends think this is wrong.

My friends and family who haven't spoken to me in years because of who I love. My family, who all but kicked me out and took my college fund away because of who I love, would think this is wrong.

Why does their opinion matter? Why does the opinion of people who haven't spoken to me in years still matter to me?

I don't know. It shouldn't matter. It really doesn't matter, but somehow, in the back of my head, it still does. Because they raised me and loved me and told me how I was going to succeed for seventeen years and then they were just gone. I don't know. Maybe I'm just never going to please them.

I'm never going to please them. And I don't care anymore. There's this girl and I don't care how old she is and I haven't felt much of anything in so long and she makes me feel something. I'm so gone that it's at the point that when I do feel something, anything, I just think that I need more medication.

I'm sleep deprived. I'm not even thinking straight. I don't even know what I'm thinking. I'm not in love with a seventeen year old. I'm just tired. I need sleep. I'm going to sleep. Sleep is good. Sleep helps.

I sigh and put my cigarette out in the ashtray sitting at my feet, and then turn and walk back inside and practically pass out on the couch

--


	6. Chapter 6

I was high. I was fucking high. I must've been. Why else would I sit on my balcony and chain smoke and honestly think for even two seconds that I could be in love with a girl that I've known for two weeks? Not even considering the fact that she's seventeen because I guess how old she is doesn't really matter. But still. That's beside the point.

The point being, what the hell was I smoking?

So it's tomorrow. And by tomorrow I mean that yesterday is, well, yesterday. Yesterday being the day that I say on my balcony, completely sleep deprived and convinced myself that I'm in love with some kid.

Oh. Wait. It must have been the sleep deprivation. So it's because of work. Well duh it's because of work, I wouldn't have even met her if it wasn't for work. It's all because of work. Work ruins lives.

I'm gonna become a hobo. Good plan. Good plan. My life will be so much better that words can't even describe it. Oh, I can see it now. Sleeping in dark allies, begging for change and food. Definitely the good life right there.

Speaking of work, that's where I am. At work. Like always. My god, do I ever do anything else? I can't wait for school to start.

Did I just say that? I think I just said that.

"Hey, Spencer, you wanna play cards?" Some guy's asking me. I glance over at him. Ricky, Afro-man (I don't even remember his real name) and Angel, except we all call him Barrack because he looks exactly like Barrack Obama. It's a little bit scary, actually. Cards with the guys. Exactly what I need.

Besides, I'm beast at cards. I have this crazy, practically photographic memory so I can remember every card that's been played and keep track of the whole deck and everything. It's pretty crazy, but it's good. I had a pretty steady cash flow from playing poker with some of the guys in my dorm until they realized how good my memory is and then they stopped letting me play when money was involved.

I love being the cool nurse. I get to have a social life even at work, even if the socializing is with high school kids with mental disorders and drug problems. I need it, considering work is all I do. Work this, work that. Then again, it's not that much different from my normal social life, which involves mostly college kids with drug problems and, no doubt, mental disorders.

I need a pet or something. Maybe I'll get a goldfish. Except then I might start talking to it and trying to play cards with it. How pathetic would that be? I'd be like a crazy cat lady, except with fish. Spencer the crazy fish lady. I'd start betting fish food on the games and everything.

I'm such a pathetic person.

"Yeah sure. You got a deck, right?"

Barrack/Angel nods, and the three pull up chairs next to the table I'm sitting at.

I feel kind of pathetic, but I need it. I need some kind of distraction and some kind of socialization besides with my imaginary pet goldfish and a seventeen year old druggie or else I'm going to go insane. Insaner. Is that even a word? I don't think that's a word. Whatever.

--

I'm standing outside and it's lunch, which is chain smoking time for me. Thank fucking god, I need it. I'm halfway through my third, and I'm twirling the cigarettes I have left absently in the pack. Fuck. I only have five or six left. I need to remember to buy more later. Thank god I'm not going to school in New York. As pathetic as it sounds, that was another deciding point in my coming to California instead of going to New York. Cigarettes are something like $8.50 a pack in New York City. I would be even more dirt broke than I already am if I was living there. Or I would've quit smoking. I doubt it though. And it's not like that would make the fact that lunch would set me back about $10 a day or I'd gain a billion pounds from eating fast food every day go away.

Then again, whatever I lost in food and cigarette money, I might've saved in gas money.

Who knows.

I don't. I do know that I miss taking metro-north to tiny little upstate towns. Not Westchester upstate, which is hardly upstate at all, but way up to the end of the Harlem Line to Wassiac, and then I'd just wonder around and walk and walk and walk. I ended up in this tiny little town once. Really run down and lower middle class, but they had cheap (and by cheap I mean $7.50 a pack) cigarettes and it was absolutely gorgeous there. It was right along the New York-Massechusettes border, and there were the biggest mountains there. They weren't dirt colored, they were just.. blue. I don't know, but I loved it. I've always had a soft spot for rural areas and the mountains and farms and everything that's the exact opposite of the cities I've spent the last few years in.

I like to travel. I think it shows. I also think I've said that before. Oh well.

Shit. My cigarette's gone. I glance at the watch on my hand (yes, I've taken to wearing a watch) and wonder for a moment if I have time for a fourth.

Nope. Fuck. Three in fifteen minutes. I'm thinking too much.

I know I smoke too much, and I know how bad it is for me and I really honestly do plan on quitting someday. Maybe when I can deal with life. Maybe when I'm done with school and things settle down, but honestly, right now I can't deal with trying to quit on top of everything else. Which makes me sound like an emo teenager, but whatever. I really don't care. I'm juggling working and putting myself through college and trying to get the best grades I can because if I don't, I don't have my parents' money to make everything better anymore.

My phone vibrates, and I look down at it for a moment, wondering if I should even bother. Then I decide, why not? I'll have to deal with it either way.

I flip open my phone, and it says that I've got a new text. I wonder for a moment again, and then shrug and hit open.

"hey, i was thinking dinner tonite? maddie 3"

I think I just got asked out.

I type, "sure" and then send the text and pull myself up, walking back inside.

What do you know. Spencer Carlin just might be regaining her social life. Shocking.

God, I need it though. I seriously am considering that goldfish for company. I know I could never take care of a dog or a cat or something, but a goldfish doesn't seem like that much work.

Wow self. A goldfish for company? New all time low. I'm pathetic. I'm so fucking glad I opened that text, or I might walk back inside and sedate myself. Even though that really doesn't make any sense and it wouldn't make my social life any better, but that just goes to show how much I'm losing my mind.

Ew. My mouth tastes like metal or something. I didn't even need a smoke.

Hey. I didn't need a smoke. Maybe I'm less addicted than I thought.

Nah.

I'm back inside, and the living room is empty.

Motherfucker. They have "quiet time" after lunch, don't they? I could've stayed outside and smoked and nobody would've even noticed. Except for the fact that I didn't even want a smoke, so I probably would be back inside either way.

I don't think that anybody who knew me when I was fifteen would've ever seen this as my future. When I was fifteen I wouldn't even look at a cigarette. I didn't have any weird mental disorders or anything and I'd never even kissed a girl. Ever. I'd never even thought about it.

Look at me now.

I guess it just goes to show that nothing's set in stone.

I shrug myself off, shrug all my thoughts and how caught up in the past I've been lately off, and sit down to the table of markers and draw a third grader's flowers. It makes me feel better, so I do it for the rest of the hour.

--

So it turns out that "dinner" actually meant going to the 24 hour diner at one in the morning, when Madison called me and asked if I wanted to go out. I was awake, smoking cigarettes and contemplating that pet goldfish. Of course. What else do I do with my time?

And now we're sitting here in an empty diner, waiting for our orders and we're playing with each other's fingers on the table like we're dating.

Are we dating?

I don't think so. We're not. We had a one night thing. Which, considering the fact that we're out for dinner, wasn't really a one night thing. I don't know. Whatever. I don't care. She has nice hands and they're warm and I like dorky little things like this, so I guess it's okay. I guess I don't mind. I don't mind. At all. It's nice, actually.

"So, miss Spencer, when you're not sitting outside bars chain smoking, going out with closeted lesbians or obsessively writing papers, what do you do?" She's asking, giving me this sort of cute half smile.

I get a little crazy over school. Which I should, considering I'm paying a gazillion dollars for it and working crazy ass hours and it'd be kind of a waste if I didn't bother to try.

"Uh, I work," I reply incredibly charismatically.

She chuckles a bit. I think she thinks I'm trying to be funny.

I definitely need to invest in that goldfish.

What the hell. It's like I'm in love with my imaginary goldfish and the prospect of talking to it and playing cards and chain smoking with it.

Geez. I should check myself into a mental hospital. Considering how much time I spend working at one, it wouldn't be too much of a lifestyle change. Except, wow, imagine when they asked me why I was there. "I was getting worried about my obsession with the pet goldfish I don't have."

Yeah. No. Nevermind. No way is that going to happen. I'm not that pathetic. Yet. It'll come in time. Much more slowly, so I won't even realize it until me and my goldfish are living in a box on the street, begging for spare change and goldfish food.

Okay. Stop with the goldfish. Right now. No more fish.

The waitress just brought our food. I ordered chocolate chip pancakes. Madison ordered salmon. I think it's a sign.

I want to slap myself.

Madison looks at my plate, and then up at me the same way she did when I ordered. Maybe she thought chocolate chip pancakes was code for something. It wasn't. I just like my pancakes, okay? I've never gone to a diner and not ordered pancakes. It's just how I am.

"I like my pancakes, okay? And if you can't accept our love, then.. too bad. You'll accept it anyway," I say, drenching my pancakes with fake maple syrup and butter.

I'm such an unhealthy person. I don't care. I control my calories and everything, but I will never, ever skimp on anything when it comes to diner pancakes. We've had a lifelong love affair.

"And I like my salmon," It's almost two in the morning and she's eating salmon and I'm eating pancakes and we're in a diner and she's a cheerleader and I'm a chain smoking school freak and we're together. I don't know what's weirdest.

But she's cute and I have pancakes, so it's all good.

I guess she noticed the look on my face as I contemplated exactly how I'm going to devour these, because I can hear her chuckling again as she says, "You're cute,"

We sit in silence for a moment as I stuff my face, and slowly realize that these aren't good diner pancakes. They're actually very, very bad diner pancakes, and now I'm absolutely heartbroken.

"I hate sitting across from people. It's so awkward," She tells me, before putting a forkful of fish in her mouth.

I look at her for a moment, and she makes a kind of "come here" motion, and then in a wonderful "I'm a total freak" fashion, I push my plate to the other side of the table, kneel down under the table and pop up on the other side of the booth next to her.

"Boo," I say, grinning at her from under the table.

She grins back and pokes my nose (no, I don't know, but I think it's kind of cute) and then goes back to her salmon. I pull myself up onto the seat and resume eating my horrific, freak of nature pancakes.

I just realized how many times I've said I think that she's cute in the last ten minutes. I need to stop. Right now. or else she's going to turn into the next goldfish.

Motherfucker. Stop with the fucking goldfish, Spencer. It's unhealthy.

"So where are you from, originally?" Madison asks after she swallows a mouthful of salmon. I guess I gave her a weird look or something, because she added, "Because you're definitely not from L.A.,"

"Originally, Ohio," I pause and stuff another bite of pancakes in my mouth. They're not very good, but they're pancakes. Pancakes must be eaten, no matter how horrible they are. Almost no exceptions. "But I've been here and there the last few years. I spent a bit of time in Vancouver, Boston, Baltimore, Washington.. most of the northeast, actually,"

I forgot New York. How do you forget New York?

"Oh, and New York,"

"New York City, New York?" She asks, looking over at me like it's more foreign than Timbuktu. Then again, it _is _three thousand miles away, so I dunno.

"Mostly, yeah,"

"Get out. I was born there,"

"For real?"

"Yep. I moved out here when I was thirteen though, so I didn't exactly get much time to go and explore the city or anything," She says, drinking from the huge glasses of ice water we got.

I give her a "you lived in New York but you never explored New York" look. I have looks for a lot of things. Either that, or I read too much into people's facial expressions.

"I was born in Manhattan, but I lived in Westchester for most of the time,"

I never really spent much time in Westchester because I didn't really think there was anything very interesting there, but me and my crazy photographic memory, I still remember almost all the towns and cities there.

"Which part?" I ask, drowning my pancakes in even more syrup.

"Around. Yonkers, Peekskill, then Chappaqua."

"Damn, are your parents loaded or something?" Chappaqua is like, the richest town in the second richest county in New York State. The richest being Manhattan. Yonkers and Peekskill are shit though. Better shit than I could hope to afford any time in the near future, but shit none the less.

"For a period,"

For a moment, we fall back into silence and sit and chew and considering the fact that it's almost gone, I'm guessing that the salmon is better than the pancakes.

"So how'd you end up all the way out here?"

I watch her chew and swallow before she answers, "My parents just got sick of the east coast, I guess. What about you, Ohio girl?"

"It was here or New York and.. I dunno. I'd never been to California before. I wanted something new, I guess," I say honestly. I stop for a moment and stare down at my pancakes, wondering if I should talk or eat. "And cigarettes are cheaper out here,"

We both laugh, chew, swallow and drink our water.

"Geez, how much do you smoke, anyway?"

It's weird, because most people ask things like that and sound absolutely disgusted. She sounds like she's actually interested.

Oh boy. A girl who's interested in my smoking habits. How romantic.

"Uh. I'm down to a pack a day or something," Shut up. I actually do feel accomplished about that. There was a period where I would go through two or three packs a day.

"I'm up to half a pack a day," She offers sheepishly.

How cool are we?

"You wanna.. uhm.." I'm indicating our empty plates in my caveman-esque manner, and she smiles again. She smiles too much. But she's pretty when she smiles and I guess she smiles enough for the both of us, so it's okay.

So we got our check and we paid and we left and we stood outside in front of her car for an awkward moment, until she leaned over and kissed me and I gracefully mumbled something about whose place she wanted to go to, but she just smiled, kissed me on the cheek and then opened her car door, leaving me standing there blushing and absolutely confused.

Do I have a girlfriend?

I have no idea. I need a cigarette.

So I sit down on the curb and fish one out of my bag, light it and star up at the sky.

Of all the things to cross my mind, Ashley does.


	7. Chapter 7

Sorry for the delay. My internet's been acting up lately and I haven't had a chance to post this.

--

I'm back to a couple of packs a day. My disaster of a person (aka myself) decided after my disaster of a date and my horribly botched pancakes and the fact that I'm going to die either way, that I may as well feel okay in the meantime. Because, guess what, even on the mountain of medication I'm on, my panic attacks are coming back, and it's not like I can afford a therapist or anything. Well, I could if I quit smoking, but I'd rather have something that calms me down every time, instead of some judgmental, overpaid asshole listen to me bitch about every little thing after the fact. Crappy therapist and no money, or cigarettes, cancer and no money? Cigarettes, no contest.

I need to straighten out my priorities.

Haha. Straighten. Spencer made a funny. See? Cause I'm gay and--

I need to die, don't I?

So, along with smoking a couple packs a day, my whole Ashley thing came back. I don't even know what it is, it's just my Ashley thing. That's just the best name I can come up with. I don't want to invest any more time thinking about her than I already do. Which is pathetic, but I really don't care.

I mean, I did kind of like Madison. For a couple of days. And, as depressing as it is, she's the first girl I've kissed since me and whatever her name was broke up, like, four months ago. I don't miss her or anything (if I did, wouldn't I remember her name?) and I was actually kind of miserable when I was with her. That was my three packs a day phase. Or, I dunno. Maybe I would've been miserable anyway. Maybe she made it better. Maybe she made it worse.

I, for one, don't give a fuck. All I know is that I have an obsessive, fifth grader crush on a seventeen year old mental patient. Which doesn't really bother me much anymore, because I've realized that I'm a lonely bag of raging hormones, and I like everybody at some point or other. It's just how I am.

Welcome to my life, I guess.

Yes, for the record, I am aware of how pathetic I am.

Speaking of Ashley and the fact that I'm a fifth grader, it's two in the morning and she's sitting out in the living room coloring and talking to me. It's become a kind of normal thing, I guess. Yeah, it has. And I kind of like it. I need the company.

"So how'd you know you were?" I ask, staring up at the clock. It's 3 in the morning on Saturday, halfway through her third week here. I've stopped letting her ask all the questions because, hey, why not? I like her. I want to know more about her. She knows more than enough about me. Besides, it's three am and it's way too quiet.

She pauses in her coloring, and it's then that I realize just how freaking quiet it is that I could hear her marker scratching on the table as well as I could.

"I guess I've always known," She says simply, staring down at her paper like she isn't going to say anything else, but then she continues, "I mean, I was in denial for the longest time. I came out as bi when I was like, twelve or something. Because, hey, I mean.. I was bicurious. I'd never gotten further than like, second with a guy."

So she got fingered when she was twelve. I didn't have my first serious boyfriend until I was fourteen.

"So I had this boyfriend sophomore year, right? And I mean.. I wasn't a virgin or anything. I'd had sex with guys and girls before, but they were all just drunk hook ups and they didn't really mean anything. And he was the most amazing guy.. funny, sweet, hot.. the whole package, y'know? It was like, I wanted to love him. With every particle of my being, I wanted to love him. And we had sex and everything but I mean.. I dunno. I just sort of laid there."

She pauses for a moment, then looks up at me, pushing her bangs back absently. "So I finally figured out I was a dyke when I was fifteen. Haven't looked at a guy since," She says conclusively, leaning back in her chair.

"I wish I'd had all that figured out when I fifteen," I say, tugging at my t-shirt self consciously.

"No you don't. I've been the school dyke since sixth grade. I went through hell for years. My life just sort of spontaneously combusted,"

"So did mine," I say defensively, feeling anger flaring up in my stomach for a moment. Just a moment though. Then it passed.

She doesn't say anything for a moment, just sits there like she's thinking, then she smiles a bit. "Being gay just wrecks lives, huh?"

I smile back and nod.

"I mean, I probably wouldn't even be here right now if I wasn't gay,"

"Me neither," I say, chuckling a bit, before I realize, "Aren't you in here for drugs?"

"Drugs that I started using because I was so fucking miserable,"

Well there's something I never would've expected. She acts like she's so high and mighty and nothing anybody says or does can touch her. Maybe that's why. Maybe she hasn't always been like that, I realize.

We sit in silence again for another moment, but she doesn't go back to her drawing like she usually does, she just sits there and looks at me, and I just sit here and look back at her. She smiles and I smile back. It's all I can do, really.

I don't know. I'm kind of crazy when it comes to girls. When it comes to just existing, really. I'm just. I don't know.

I say "I don't know" too much, don't I? I do. I should really stop. I'm going to stop now. Really. I am.

"I honestly have no idea what I'd do with myself here if it wasn't for you," Ashley's telling me, looking up at me and giving me one of her puppy looks. Hey. Wow. I haven't seen one of those in a while.

Cute as ever.

"So do you know when you're getting released yet?" I ask, glancing at the clock again. 3:10. How she manages to stay awake this late when she wakes up at 7 every morning, I have no idea. Maybe she just doesn't sleep.

"I dunno. They said at least another week or two,"

"Oh.. That sucks,"I say, trying not to look at her as I think, _thank god._

I'm selfish, I know. Oh well. Deep down, we all are, even if it's just a little. I'm just a little more forward about it.

"Come on, you love that I'm here," She says, and I look up at her. She's grinning, "I mean, come on, who wouldn't want me around? I'm gorgeous,"

"I'm glad to see that you aren't an egomaniac or anything,"

"Yeah, but you think it's adorable,"

It's true.

"So?"

Oh. Fuck. I wasn't supposed to say that out loud. Fuck fuck fucking fuck, Spencer. Honestly.

We sit in silence for a few seconds, and I hit myself in my mind a thousand times. A thousand and one. A thousand and two.

"I'm gonna go to bed," She says softly.

Okay, no. Try a million. Fuck.

I look up at her nervously, but she's yawning with her hand over her mouth, and then she smiles, stands, and kisses me on the cheek.

"G'night Spencer," She says, just as softly, and then turns and walks down the hallway to her bedroom.

I just sit here and stare at the ceiling and feel myself blushing. I never blush. I'm blushing.

She has really soft lips.

What the hell. Wow self. Just wow. I'm pathetic. I'm ridiculous. I don't even know what I am. I'm just sad. Pathetic sad. Except I already said pathetic, but that's okay. I'll say it again, because I am. I really, really am. I'm just.. wow.

I turn my gaze down at the floor and I trace all the little patterns that people's feet make. Somehow, I manage to find a face. I found a face in the carpet. I should be an artist or something. Yeah, uh, no. Not gonna happen.

I look back up, and she's standing there, looking more unsure of herself than I've ever seen her. She's tugging on her sleeves and looking at me nervously.

"Uhm," We both mumble at the same time, very charismatically. Before I know what I'm doing, I'm standing and I'm realizing like I have so many times before just how close she really is to me.

"Hi," Brilliant. I'm brilliant. Words can't even describe it. I must have an I.Q. of like 300. I should've gone to Harvard.

Yeah, I'm going to stop now.

She's got her hands in my hair all of a sudden, and when did those get there? I have no idea. They just appeared. And then my hand's on hers and then I'm looking nervously at her and I'm screaming in my head about how wrong this is, but then I get myself out of my head and just look at her and I don't care.

And then I'm learning that her lips are even softer when they're on mine. She's holding my hand and I'm learning that her tongue tastes like peppermint, even though she brushed her teeth at nine, and just what it feels like when she pulls me against her and what her body feels like on mine and I think I have goosebumps.

I have goosebumps. She gave me fucking goosebumps.

I love it.

--


	8. Chapter 8

hey. i'm back :)

--

"Hey sleepyhead, time to wake up," I'm saying, knocking half-heartedly at her door. Her being Ashley. Of course. Like always. What other "her"s do I have in my life?

I glance in her room, wondering why I haven't heard her moving or anything, but she's already awake, sitting in her bed and leaning against her wall and staring at the painting on the wall. God only knows why they aren't allowed to have outlets in the walls in their rooms, but it's just fine to have paintings with glass frames. I guess whoever it is that's running the place figures that somebody would hear glass breaking.

Not that I've heard of anybody actually being able to hurt themselves with a piece of glass. Well, no, that's not entirely true, people get fucked up by shrapnel all the time in car accidents and stuff, but I've never heard of a cutter doing any real damage.

Why do I care?

I don't really know. I don't care. I just can't get my mind to fucking sit still and I'm looking at her and I'm wondering if maybe I just dreamed that kiss last night. And it's kind of fucked up and pathetic, but that was probably the best kiss I've ever had in my twenty one year old life.

Don't minds always sit still?

Can minds move?

See? This is what I mean. I'm just ridiculous. I have the attention span of a rodent or a four year old in a room full of candy who has no idea where to start.

"How long have you been awake?" I ask, standing there awkwardly like some kind of giraffe with a broken knee cap, my hands shoved in my pockets like I'm seventeen years old again and standing in the locker room with every half naked girl staring at me like I'm a boy.

She turns her head and looks at me for the first time, like she never even realized I was in here, yawns and mumbles, "A while," her hair sticking up in all the oddest haphazardous angles and her eyeliner smeared just the tiniest little bit under her eyes. The poor girl looks absolutely exhausted.

The way she looks at me like she never kissed me and I never kissed her back makes me think that maybe I fell asleep last night and dreamed the whole thing, and I'm terrified of asking in case it really was. The last thing I want is for her to think that I'm having sex dreams about her on the job (or at all, for that matter) because honestly, that's just plain strange. Most people tend to not want to know about that kind of thing.

Forget feeling seventeen, I feel like a twelve year old, acting like one silly little kiss is the end of the world or cause for me to act the way I'm acting.

I'm just odd, okay?

I'm very, very odd. I'm gay, I can't really be blamed. All of us lesbians are weirdos in some way or another, and even if we're completely normal, we're still weird in the eyes of plenty of people just for being gay.

Why am I ranting about being gay?

I don't know what to say to her. I really don't. What're you supposed to say in a situation like this?

Somebody might know, but it sure as hell isn't me.

"Uhm, breakfast is ready," I tell her, biting my tongue and showing off just how charismatic I really am, and I practically sprint out there like a kicked puppy with my tail between my legs. I steal a glance at her before she's completely out of sight, and I think she looks sad.

I'm not quite sure though. I'm not brave enough to look again.

--

I crushed up a caffeine pill and snorted it--probably the closest to doing drugs I've ever come, and decided that I need to get the hell out of the city, even if it's just for a few hours. So that's just what I did. I got into my car and drove and drove until I was in the middle of nowhere and realized that maybe I don't want to be gone after all, that maybe a bar would've been a better idea but it's a little bit too late to change my mind, so I climb out of my car and sit down in the dirt next to it and smoke cigarettes.

I can't stop thinking about her. I really can't. This is honestly getting out of hand, except that's not right because it got out of hand a long time ago.

I can't stop thinking about the way her lips felt against mine. I can't stop thinking about how fucking good it felt.

And then I can't stop thinking about how much I need a life and how badly I need to stop thinking about this and my stupid crush on this girl, for god's sake.

I was about to say this seventeen year old girl, but honestly, the more I think about it and the more time I spend around her, the less I really care about her age because she's only a couple of years younger than me, and to be perfectly honest, I was with people who were older than I am now when I was her age.

I sit there in the dirt outside my car, cigarette in my mouth and close my eyes and ignore the sun against my skin, and the horrible sunburn I know I'm going to have later, because fuck it, it's worth it for just a few seconds to myself for a change. Screw the city, this is where I want to be.

No it isn't. I'm in the middle of the desert. We've established that I don't really like it here, and if I was left here for more than eight hours I would be begging to come back to Los Angeles, but whatever. It's nice here for the moment. It's where I want to be for the moment.

I want to be at work. I want to see her.

I don't even think that it's fucked up anymore. I'm past that stage. Way past that stage.

I would get back in my car and start driving home, and I do get partway there. Getting into my car works out alright, it's the driving home part that I apparently have trouble with, because I guess I'm crashing from the caffeine I put up my nose, because I'm leaning against the passenger seat and telling myself that I'm just closing my eyes for a couple of minutes, and the next thing I know it's dark out.

Shit.

It's fucking dark out and I'm in the desert and somebody probably broke into my car--okay, no, that didn't happen, I don't feel like I've been assraped and my cigarettes and credit card are still here and, in all honestly, they're probably the most valuable things in here. Wait. Car keys.

Yeah, they're there too. Okay. I'm okay.

I have work in two hours, don't I?

I do. Fantastic.

Well, I can go to work now. Isn't that I wanted to do before I went to sleep? Yeah, yeah it is.

I sit there for another minute with the keys in the ignition, just staring at the stars like I'm trying to be deep or I'm on acid, and then I shrug to myself and start my car.

Back to work again. Like always. Oh, exciting life.

--


	9. Chapter 9

i refuse to abandon another story.

--

"I can't sleep," It's three in the morning, and Ashley's standing next to me with this nervous look on her face and she's biting her lip and I'm not sure how I'm' supposed to respond.

She kissed me. I kissed her. Whatever. She hasn't said a word to me until now.

Not that I can really blame her. This is such a weird situation, when you think about it.

I look up at her, and I'm at a loss for words for a moment, and we're left alone in the silence with nothing but the sound of the seconds passing by, but it isn't the same as it always is. Her words are hanging in the air and it's making it so thick that we could suffocate any minute now.

"I need a cigarette," I finally say, pulling myself up and fishing through my bag for my lighter and keys.

We need keys to open the door to go outside. How sad is that? The bathrooms too. We need to unlock the bathroom whenever somebody has to piss.

I'm halfway down the hallway when I realize that if I think I'm just going to smoke one cigarette, I'm fucking stupid.

"Ashley, can you get my--you _are_ coming, aren't you?" I ask, and I'm sure I sound just as nervous as she looked when I realize she's still standing next to the chair I was sitting in, looking at a loss.

"Uh, am I allowed to be going.." She trails off, and I smile and shake my head, and then shrug. It's three in the morning, I'm the only nurse on duty, and everybody else in this place is so chock full of sleeping meds that they wouldn't wake up if there was an earthquake or something.

Ashley Davies actually acknowledging a rule. I'm shocked.

Spencer Carlin breaking a rule.

I'm not sure which is more unexpected.

She grabs my bag and then she's standing next to me, giving me the weirdest look when I walk past the door to the courtyard.

"Aren't we going to the courtyard?"

I shake my head again. "You need to actually be outside, not that disgusting courtyard. It smells like ass,"

She looks completely baffled. I guess she thought I was some kind of rule abiding angel.

"Besides, you can see the courtyard from like three other units," It's only after I've said it that I realize how it sounds. Oh god. Not what I meant. Quick Spencer, save yourself while you can. "I mean, like, I will get my fucking ass torn apart if somebody finds out that I'm sneaking you out of here at three in the morning,"

She smiles and doesn't say anything, and I can just barely see her eyes darting around in the dim hallway light.

Five minutes and a fight to the near death with my keys and the outside door, I'm sitting on the stairs and lighting a cigarette.

Heaven. Lung killing, cancerous heaven.

She still hasn't said a word, she's just sitting there drumming her fingers against her leg and looking up at the sky, and as weird as it sounds, the shadows that the light from the moon cast on her face make her look absolutely gorgeous.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say right now.

I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her again so badly.

"Hey," I poke her shoulder, and she snaps her head around and looks at me. Fuck. There go my guts. Fuck, Spencer. Since when am I a pussy? Actually, nevermind. Bad rhetorical question. Uhm. Think on your feet--er, ass. I grab my pack of Marlboros and hold it out to her. "I changed my mind,"

She gives me this weird look as she takes one and holds it awkwardly. Oh right. She doesn't have a lighter. I pull mine out of my pocket and light her cigarette, and she takes this huge motherfucking drag. Like, she hits it, inhales, hits it again, inhales, and then with smoke starting to seep out of her nose, hits it a third time and then exhales a rain cloud of smoke. Exhale a second time. More smoke.

Oh my dear god.

"Your first day. You asked me for a cigarette," I tell her, staring at the ground because fuck, I think I'm blushing.

I am.

I'm retarded.

She looks at me weird for a moment, and then smiles. Not a huge grin or anything, just this small little motion in the edges of her mouth but it seems like it lights up her whole face or something because it's so genuine.

"So tell me about you," it's the first thing she's said since we were inside, I realize, and her voice is so much softer than I ever remember it being any other time I've talked to her. Even when she nearly cried in front of me that first night, and then hugged me.

"There isn't much to tell, really," I answer half honestly.

She looks kind of hurt for a second or two, but then she just takes another, thankfully smaller, drag of her cigarette and stares out at the highway.

"Tell me about you," I say, following her gaze out to the city lights, and I realize then how trapped she must feel in this place. And now the city, her city, is right in front of her and it's come to life with the night, and she can't leave to join it.

"I take after my rock star father. I love coke. I love pot. I like sex," She answers simply, leaning back, and we're quiet for almost a minute. There's more than that, but I don't want to push her. "I like sunflowers. I drive around in the middle of nowhere for no reason for hours."

I turn and look at her, but don't say anything and she doesn't return my look, doesn't shift at all, just keeps staring out at those lights and moving her lips and casting the most gorgeous shadows across the contours of her neck, her collarbone and her face.

"I actually don't like drugs. Part of me hates myself for everything I've done. I hate sleeping around. It's just to forget that first stupid boy who wouldn't take no for an answer." She pauses for another moment, and turns and looks at me, before she says, "And I think you're beautiful,"

It's quiet and her words are hanging in the air again, but they aren't suffocating me. Not at all. And I'm sitting here, forgotten cigarette burning in my hand and I'm biting my lip and my eyes are darting around us like hers were earlier.

"And you have no idea," Ashley starts, running her fingers across mine and inching closer to me, and I can't read her now. I can't pick apart her body language or the look on her face, or that look in her eyes, until she finishes, "How badly I want to.."

She trails off again, and before I know how she got there, she's right in front of me, her nose brushing against mine and I'm breathing her air and she smells like something fruity mixed with cigarettes, and she's just hovering there, inches away from me and I want to just close this stupid gap between us but I'm afraid to in the strangest way.

Her eyes dart upward again and meet mine, like she's asking my permission or something, and I can't take it.

I kiss her.

She kisses back, and she tastes like.. she tastes like Ashley, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say it was almost magic.


End file.
